


Freefall

by cuneifire (orphan_account)



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Telepathic Bond, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-23 03:54:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20001904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/cuneifire
Summary: When you spend your life jumping off cliffs, you get used to no one being there to catch you.





	Freefall

When you spend your life jumping off cliffs, you get used to no one being there to catch you.

James T. Kirk understands freefall. He got his first taste when he was eleven, and it's stuck with him ever since- the wind whooshing in his ears, the sheer wonder at what it would be like to _just let go._

He's gotten used to saving himself at the last minute. 

.

"A diplomatic mission?"

"They require the leader's presence."

Spock’s fingers pause over the dull white rook. He doesn’t tilt his head, but after two years on the ship together Jim’s learned to read him. Well enough, he supposes. 

“Why?”

“The D’horians subscribe to the ‘Great Man’ theory of history; that only a select few may change the course of the world they inhabit. Such great men are most likely to be found in positions of leadership, and the rest is henceforth merely, as you might put it, decoration.” 

Kirk pauses to think about it. 

“That’s dumb.” 

Spock blinks; his equivalent of a shrug. “It does not change the fact that your presence is required on the mission.” And Kirk grins a bit, because that is most definitely Spock agreeing with him. 

He moves his rook forward by three spaces, so that Kirk is left with a fork where he either has to sacrifice his bishop or his knight. Kirk moves his knight out of the way, poised to kill Spock’s queen unless he moves. 

Which he inevitably will. It’s the logical move; save the most powerful piece. 

“...But you can’t win a game of chess with just a king.” Kirk finishes off, pulling his gaze from the board to give Spock a grin. 

“Seeing as kings are not allowed to be within one square of each other, that is correct. However, one could theoretically win a game with only a king and a queen.”

“You could win with a king and a pawn, too.” 

“Would you endeavour to play with such a setup, Captain?” Spock says, moving his queen out of harm’s way as he glances up at Kirk, the slightest bit of mischief in his eyes. 

Kirk shrugs, stretching out his hands and popping his knuckles before turning back to the board, attention rapt on his only remaining pawn. It’s diagonally aimed to Spock’s bishop, and he knocks the piece over will glee. His fingers dance over the edge of one of Spock’s defunct pawns as he considers which piece to revive. His queen’s dead, but…

“Knight, please.” he says, and watches as Spock raises an eyebrow, before Kirk finds his voice again. “I wouldn’t want to play with them. I’m just saying it’s possible.” Then, giving a pause, he says, “What the hell. Next time, sure.” He glances down. 

“Oh, and check.” He says, and watches Spock look slightly surprised to find his king under threat from Kirk’s knight. 

The game goes on for a good four hours. 

.

The D’horians are an incredibly polite society, a façade which is disturbed only by the fact that they address all conversation toward Kirk, and that all questions are given by one tall figure draped in gold silks. 

According to the file he’d plowed through earlier, the D’horians were telepaths, who could contact each other without even initial touch, and never much bothered to speak. They’d only recently achieved First Contact, and were talking through a bizarre little contraption one short figure in pink silk had placed upon the table at the very beginning. 

For the last three hours, they’d asked him questions on near everything- human culture, history, achievements, Starfleet, space- and most recently, the accomplishments of the _Enterprise._ Kirk had just finished recounting the latest of their escapades against the Klingons when one of the smaller figures bobbled its head a bit, and the leader turned to face it. 

The voice in the box seemed to almost convey confusion as it spoke. “Captain, one of my inferiors wants to know how you managed all these things yourself. Do humans have some sort of elevated time capacity?”

 _Elevated time capacity?_ He mouthed at Uhura, who returned with an equally puzzled look. What a weird question. Kirk shook his head, putting down his two-pronged fork. 

“Myself? I didn’t do all that myself, I had the help of my crew.” 

The cloaked figures shifted uneasily. The leader spoke again, voice a bit harder. “But Captain, does that not incapacitate your ability as an individual?” 

What? 

Kirk shook his head. “Of… course not. My team makes all this- he waves a hand around, although it occurs to him that he doesn’t know if the D’horians can actually see him do so, “-possible. I can't do a four hundred man job all alone,” He gives a little chuckle, which none of the D’horians seem to be sharing. “No man is an island, and all.” He looks to Uhura, who gives him a panicked _I don’t know either_ glance. Before she can elaborate, the lead D’horian speaks again. 

“Captain Kirk, I believe we have… gravely misjudged you.” The lead D’horian says, and with a swoop of its hand, all the plates at the dinner table crack. Okay, time to abort-

“You must have misinterpreted something, esteemed leader, I do not-”

“Speak no more. You have shown yourself to be a con, James Kirk, and you shall pay.” 

Well. That certainly hadn’t been in the file. Kirk jumps to his feet just as the nearest D’horians grab Spock and Uhura and drag them away, leaving two crewmembers aside. He turns to the two, who look at him with eager and frightened eyes. He gives them a smile. 

“We save them, and then we get out. Good?” He says, and they nod. He tries not to feel like he’s sending them off to their deaths. 

Half of the away team had been sitting there, and the D’horians hadn’t taken them prisoner, even though they were closer to the D’horians than Spock and Uhura. 

_Why them?_ He thought, shoving past a figure in purple silk, who turned around with claws drawn out. His hand goes hot enough that his skin feels like it’ll melt, and he pulls away just in time to realise it was from skin-to-skin contact. 

“One has not told you, James Tiberius Kirk?” the figure says to him, scarves shifting as it reached to pull something from a table. Kirk reached for his phaser, but not before she got out a few words. 

“The best way to hurt a great man is not to harm him, but the person he loves most.” 

Kirk stunned her, then ran after Spock and Uhura. 

_Fuck, not Uhura, not Spock,_ Kirk’s thinking as he shoves his way through the crowd, incapacitating a few D’horians on the way. _Goddamnit._

He knocks over a table, a vase full of something that smells similar to rose perfume spilling everywhere and burning a hole in the ground which he carefully steps around. He catches one of the larger knives midair, brandishing it as he breaks into a sprint and heads towards Uhura and Spock.

They’re… he doesn’t know _what_ they’re doing with Spock and Uhura, one of the figures has a hand to Spock’s temple and Spock is _wincing,_ which- well, if _Spock_ is in pain-

Kirk doesn’t think. His feet take him one, two, four steps, and he’s got a hand on this thing, thinking _fuck no not my crew goddamnit I won’t leave them no one should have that can’t abandon-_ and it’s all shrieking, blinding pain up his arms and his temples and his chest and phophenes behind his eyes and in his head and _they’re going to kill him-_

Something else touches his temple, the pressure light against the still throbbing pain coursing through his veins. He wonders, vaguely, if this is it. He’ll never see his mom again. Never finish this goddamn mission. Never prove everyone who said he couldn’t wrong. Never tell his crew how damn proud of them he is, tell Bones how thankful he is that they met, even if he’s a pain in the ass sometimes. Hell, he’ll never be able to tell Spock that he _loves him-_

 _‘Jim?’_ A tentative voices rings out in his mind. The pain seems to be subsiding, just a bit. Kirk wonders what this could-

 _Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh_ fuck. 

_‘Spock?’_

_‘The D’horians are capable of touch telepathy with other species, and can induce a great amount of pain through simple contact. As I am a telepath myself, they had greater difficulty implementing the effects on me. I hypothesised that establishing a telepathic bond between us may aid your pain. As your pain was great, this bond was required to be slightly deeper than an average one.’_

_‘Can’t that be dangerous? For you?’ fucking hell Spock you’re not supposed to do that what am I supposed to do if you die I can’t-_

There’s a pause, and Kirk realises Spock must have heard. His thoughts are damning even, even without Spock having heard that

_I love you-_

Something jolts in his mind, the pressure against his temple lightening as his slowly blinks awake. 

“...Spock?” he says, and looks up. 

Spock is staring at him, and Kirk almost opens his mouth to ask why. Then, he thinks he probably wouldn’t like the answer. 

“We must return to the ship. The D’horians have broken Federation coding, and the Federation must be alerted. It would also be prudent to avoid persecution by the D’horian public, if possible.” 

It takes him a second to sort that out, through the fuzz in his head. “I… yeah, Spock. Sounds good.”

They don’t talk much, after that. 

.

Things aren’t different when they get back. 

Correction: Kirk acts as though things aren’t different when they get back. 

Correction: Kirk attempts to act as though things aren’t different when they get back, and fails. Multiple times. 

He doesn’t drop any of his duties, or forget a report or anything like that. He remembers to eat something other than burgers (mostly due to Bones’ nagging). He goes to the gym at his usual hours. He talks to the crew- even Spock- normally, if more professionally than he did beforehand. 

He changes his shifts so they don’t interact with Spock’s. He blows off their by now near-nightly chess games, and the look in Spock’s eyes kills him every time, but he needs to stop this. He needs to take a breath. If he spends too much time around Spock now it’ll go to his head, he knows. He’ll start thinking that if Spock doesn’t hate him after what happened, maybe he wants him too. If he could put up with Jim’s pining then maybe he’d return it. And that will ruin Kirk. And the ship will suffer. Because once he gets an inch, he takes a mile. He knows himself. 

He can’t give an inch. 

So he watches as Spock slowly stops offering, watches as he asks Uhura to lunch, and thinks, _just give it time._ A few days. That’s all he needs. Then he’ll go back to normal. Then he’ll be able to squash this feeling, and put duty first. 

Something tells him he should’ve been able to do that immediately. 

Something else tells him he’s screwing it all up. 

.

Spock knocks on the door. When Kirk fails to answer, he pushes it open anyway. 

Kirk doesn’t say anything as he hears familiar footsteps falling just a bit closer, supposedly engrossed in a report of a minor infraction that took place five months ago between two Ensigns. It’s drier than the Sahara, but his heart is pounding. 

“Captain, it has occurred to me that there are a multitude of issues it would be pertinent for us to discuss.” Spock regards him from a few steps away. Kirk thinks that two days is more than enough brooding and running from his problems, no matter how grave they might seem. Spock’s right, goddamnit, as per usual. Kirk rolls his shoulders back, and looks him in the eye. 

“I agree, Spock. You wanna sit?”

“Amenable,” Spock says, and sits. He takes his time looking around Kirk’s room, gaze fixed on some indeterminate point, before he visibly straightens, and looks to Kirk again. 

“Our mission led me to discover certain things about our relationship I was not supposed to be privy to. For this, I must apologize, as it is my responsibility to maintain control of the telepathic abilities I possess: I was under duress, and my shields had been lowered significantly. In future occurrences, I will do better in reining in such abilities. If that is not adequate for you, Captain, then I will take the time to request a formal transfer.” 

It’s a second or two before he fully takes all of that in. His eyes go wide, and he stops, aborting the movement of his hands in mid-air. Spock most definitely would not want Kirk touching him right now. 

“Spock. It’s… not your fault. Whatsoever. If there's anyone who should be transferring, it’s me.” 

His gaze sticks to the ground, and when he looks up, Spock is staring at him, lips slightly parted. Total disbelief. 

Kirk takes a second to run over his words, and realises why. 

He doesn't know why he said it. It just- fell out. The truth does that sometimes. And the truth is that the Enterprise was once the most important thing in his life- the prestige, the association, the realisation that _he was a captain now, that he finally_ was _somebody._

But. 

That’s changed. 

_Somewhere along the way, Spock became more important._

He looks up, and tries for a grin. It’s not his usual smile, the one Uhura told him he ‘uses like a knife’ and Bones says ‘deflects all accusations’. It feels like his defenses have been stripped, like all the flash and glamour that follows to valiantly in his footsteps has been peeled right off and leaving him alone. Not Jim Kirk: Youngest Starfleet Captain. Not Jim Kirk: Playboy extraordinaire. Not Jim Kirk: Suave and well-spoken in tough situations. Just _him,_ a guy who happened to fall in unrequited love with the wrong person at the wrong time, a guy who fucks up and makes so many mistakes the tally would be pages long, the kid who drove a car off a cliff because he was so convinced no one would catch him. 

He wonders if Spock notices. He thinks- hopes- that he does. 

And Kirk’s pretty sure he does, because his eyes go soft and there’s something like a smile creeping up at the corner of his lips, and _holy shit-_ he’s _smiling_ as he says-

“Jim, there is no place I would rather be than at your side.” 

Kirk stares at him, smiling even though Vulcans don’t smile, giving a look that feels all too similar to the one Kirk was giving him a half-second ago. He thinks about courage, about taking a step into the unknown even if you don’t know what it leads to. 

Giving Spock a slight smile, he reaches out and touches his hand, just grazes their fingertips together. He tilts his head. In his mind, he hears a voice that sounds like his own, saying, _Is this okay?_

The response is immediate. 

_More than adequate._

Kirk smiles. And Spock smiles back. 

.

It feels like freefall, that same rush of air in your hair, the adrenaline in your veins. The same wonder as you look out over infinity, wondering what would happen if you just _jumped._

Except this time, someone’s here to catch him. 

**Author's Note:**

> -I am slightly misrepresenting the ‘Great Man’ theory of history. For clarity, the theory is such that ‘history of shaped almost entirely by individuals with great power or influence’ Examples of such individuals would be Jesus, Shakespeare, Martin Luther, Napoleon, Alexander the Great, and Hitler. (‘Great’ meaning not morally good, but of grand importance). 
> 
> ['No man is an island'](https://allpoetry.com/No-man-is-an-island) by John Donne


End file.
